Comes A Time
by Pivot
Summary: Armada: Sometimes keeping in the present is the only way to deal with the future. PoV thingy.


_Disclaimer: I don't own 'em. As if anyone needed me to tell them that . . ._

_Well, I never thought this would happen, but I ended up writing the - checks - tenth POV fic of mine, and for someone I hadn't expected to. Oh, well: feel free to shred this as you will . . ._

_(While I'm running around editing the notes, I might as well mention that this was sort-of in response to a review by ckret suggesting that the Autobots probably weren't as 'mistranslated' as the 'cons. (They do hog most of the characterisation time, after all.) I took it as a semi-challenge, and it was all fun. Also, I have retold this story very badly, since she didn't suggest it that strongly. The review should be around somewhere if anyone really cares enough to look it up.)_

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**Comes A Time**

Sometimes I wonder why I bother.

Especially at times like these, when everything seems so futile. Where is the sense in bringing each new one to the peak of their abilities, only to send them out to die? Spark after spark snuffed out, empty shadows lingering where there were faces . . .

Maybe I think this only because I have lived to see so many pass before me and onwards, while I remain here. Certainly I doubt that any of my comrades have such thoughts. Except, perhaps, Red Alert. In some ways, we are two means to the same end: I the agent of prevention and he the minister of cure.

Of course, a moment's thought reminds me why I continue to work with those who pass by. They will, of course, die anyway. How, and when, is undetermined in the beginning. All of these things are equally true, and equally unimportant to my aims.

Maybe they think I am as uncaring as I act, and to a point they would be right in doing so. It's equally probable that they simply do not question my actions; they only know me, and what I do, not why, and possibly see my function and I as one and the same. Not so, however. The reasons behind my methods are many, and they are too young to understand some of them. Yes, I do, in some way, care about them as individuals, and yes, it is possible that I would do this anyway, because it is in my nature. And there is some sense of pride, and a kind of reward in seeing the results of my work. But such motives are trivial in comparison to my true purpose. All my training can hope to do is to prolong the inevitable; all my lessons come to nothing if they fail to provide an initial boost for the journey ahead.

Comes a time when all my efforts cannot help them, when they will stand alone, armed only with the defenses that they themselves create. There is no rhyme or reason to the time or manner of the ending; the only choice they will have is how they conclude the matter. I cannot defend them in those moments, nor can I take the blow for them; only they can face their death, and my only chance to help them will have passed long before they do.

The only thing I can do for them is to _be_ an uncaring tutor, to be the impartial judge who will yet give them a second chance and counsel with my verdict, for life itself is both and will do neither. They and no one else can live their life, and only they can use that time for what it must be. It falls to me to prepare them for life; they then must prepare to die. How and when you go is insignificant as long as you are ready for it, and in this matter I endeavour to help them on their way. I can do no more than build their initial defences; the student must build upon them and be ready or let them decay and thus be open to the deathblow.

I have had time to watch others die around me; I have faced the coming event for longer than most of my surrounding colleagues know. I spend my time trying to prepare others, but there will come a time when I will learn the truth, the final verdict from a judge and opponent I have long since come to respect: whether I myself am ready, if my lifelong effort has been for nothing. I will stand alone, and all my concern will be for myself, because only I will live and die in that instant.

I cannot be certain if I am ready, but I think I am, and I think . . . perhaps, that is all that matters. For now, then, I must do what I can for the ones who aren't. They don't quite grasp that this latest lost trainee of mine was entirely ready for it, and perhaps they wouldn't care if they did. Despite what they might think, I do feel grief . . . but I have had longer than they realise to learn to come to terms with such things.

My adversary has always been life, and I suspect I have come as close to winning the struggle as any being can, but as I know, no spark can linger forever. My time will come, and I will be ready for it, and face my defeat with the equanimity of ages.

Defeat . . . but not, I think, disgrace.

_Not yet . . . the end._


End file.
